Kindle Fire HD 8.9 hits the UK with a £230 price-tag

Or £260 for the 32GB version

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 has hit Amazon UK and you can pick one up from today for the princely sum of £229.

The bigger tablet has been available in the US since it was announced back in October 2012, but the UK has had to make do with the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Paperwhite in the meantime.

In exchange for your patience and your 229 big ones, Amazon will send you an 8.9-inch tablet with a 1920 x 1200 resolution display at 254ppi (that's pretty sharp, to use the layman's vernacular).

Fire in the hole

The tablet comes with Wi-Fi connectivity but not 3G (or 4G), plus a promise of 10 hours of battery life, although Amazon hasn't thought to mention what you can do during those 10 hours.

Video-callers will be pleased to hear of the inclusion of a front-facing HD camera, and there's also dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio which you won't get on any other tablets.

Of course, Amazon's keen to point out that it has the "world's best content ecosystem", boasting more than 22 million films, TV shows, songs, apps, games, books, audiobooks and magazines - it runs on Android, see, but with an Amazon skin and access to the Kindle library, Amazon music stores and Lovefilm.

Storage comes in at either 16GB or 32GB depending on which option you go for - you'll pay £259 for the larger version - plus there's free cloud storage for any bits and pieces of entertainment you buy direct from Amazon.